When newspaper baron Cyrus Curtis purchased the Lyndon estate from Abraham Barker in 1893, he hired Philadelphia botanist and horticulturalist Thomas Meehan of Germantown to landscape his property. Meehan is famous for saving Bartram’s Gardens and creating Hunting Park in the northern reaches of the city among other projects.

Mary Louse Curtis Bok, then the proprietor, decided to give the estate to Cheltenham Township in 1937 but first hired Olmsted Sons to create an arboretum on the grounds of the estate.

According to Friends of Curtis Arboretum, Olmsted “believed that Parks contribute to mental and physical health, and by doing so, help to develop the web of connections that make community possible.” For his project’s plan courtesy of the Olmsted Archives, you can click here.

Images of his original designs are below:

Courtesy of the Olmsted Archives

In the early 1900s, Curtis, who published The Saturday Evening Post and a thriving sheet music business, held opulent parties at the estate located on Church Road in Wyncote. He died in 1933 at the age of 82.

According to Thomas J. Wieckowski, Vice-President of the Old York Road Historical Society and Vice-Chair of the Cheltenham Township Historical Commission:

For 170 years after the William Penn land grant to William Frampton, the rolling fields of today’s Curtis Arboretum were legacy Quaker farmlands. The name “Chelten Hills” was affixed to the area in 1854 by an abolitionist entrepreneur, Edward M. Davis, who sold estates for country homes to the wealthy businessmen of Philadelphia. Prominent Philadelphia banker Abraham Barker purchased his estate in that year and named it “Lyndon.” Following his dramatic bank failure in 1890, the estate was purchased by an enterprising publisher, Cyrus Curtis, who constructed his own million-dollar manse on the property.

It was donated to the Township by his daughter, Mary Louise Curtis Bok, who also founded Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music.

Today the location is free to the public and open from dawn to dusk. The Township hosts a “Concerts in the Park Free Music Series” there each summer. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and serves as the Cheltenham High School boys and girls cross-country teams’ home course.

The arboretum also features two ponds, several hills, a World War II memorial, a dog park, and 50 varieties of trees. 

Curtis Hall, once the original music ballroom of the estate, is now operated by the Cheltenham Township Parks and Recreation Department. The capacity for dining and dancing is 200. You can watch a wedding which took place on the grounds in 2022:

According to local historian Chuck Langerman, the world-famous Philadelphia Orchestra performed a free concert at the arboretum during the summer of 2012. In May 2019, PBS39 featured Curtis Hall’s grand reopening after its significant renovation.

For more on the arboretum, you can visit its Facebook page. For photo galleries of events at the arboretum, you can click here.

For a deep dive into Cyrus H.K. Curtis and the history of the Curtis family, you can watch this Youtube video courtesy of Camden Public Library Programs, which features Wieckowski:

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Photos courtesy of Wikipedia, Cheltenham Township